Versatility of this 'magical material' is popping up in creative design solutions for opening up tight spaces and connecting us with the outdoors

Architect Rick Shean relied heavily on glass to make his narrow Hintonburg home feel open and bright for his family - wife Lee-Ann Zanelli, son Enzo, 3, and baby daughter Aylin.

Photograph by: Pat McGrath
, Ottawa Citizen

A young Ottawa architect and an established dentist are among those who have turned to glass, the sassy new darling of the housing industry, to solve two very different design challenges: the first to explode tight inside spaces; the second to maximize outstanding views.

The architect - a 40-year-old father of a toddler and a newborn daughter - bought a slim lot in Hintonburg that was a smidgen under 24 feet across and chose to design a crisp two-storey home boasting more glass than solid walls.

Inside, Rick Shean used it for walls, stairs, even a large walk-in shower. The actual house is 16 feet four inches wide, yet it feels much more open because of the glass, says Shean, who works with a master of the material, Ottawa architect Chris Simmonds.

"I love glass," says Shean, who boasts he can sit in the rear of his three-bedroom home, look through a courtyard and out the large windows of the front to the street beyond.

"Everything is about the transfer of light." The rooms, he says, continually change character through the day, especially at sunrise and sunset.

"It's best to be neat and tidy," he adds, "but if not we pull down the blinds and we go from public to private spaces."

The confirmed minimalist has no desire to build a bigger house. "There is 1,500 square feet on two levels and a crazy room for the kids in the basement. There is more than enough room for us."

It was Simmonds and Shean who also captured big views of the water, the Gatineau Hills and the Parliament Buildings in the Ottawa River home of an engaging dentist who bought the property in 2007 because he loved the location and views.

There was talk of renovating the existing modern two-storey on the site, but Sim-monds warned costs would be excessive and the end product wouldn't be ideal.

"There was a big stone fireplace blocking my view of the river," says the owner. Sim-monds turned the direction of the house 90 degrees so the longest walls of the house face the river and downtown Ottawa. The water side of the home is virtually all glass.

"Now I have a three-sided fireplace that is smack in the middle of the house. It is in exactly the right place," says the owner, who is only too happy to personally clean all of his windows for the time being.

"I am enjoying the spaces now," he says, adding he wanted a home that would be a natural gathering spot for his family and friends.

The Ottawa River house is the latest offering from Simmonds and his long-running fascination with glass, linking inside spaces to gardens and the outside.

"So many of us are driven by a desire to connect with what is happening in nature, simply because it is so restorative to our nervous system and to our souls," he says, opting for a bank of large windows on the southern side of his own home on Riverdale Avenue in Old Ottawa South. "What's really stupendous is to get glass to stretch from floor to ceiling so it feels like the inside is outside."

Simmonds - who refers to his addiction to the architecture of glass - also turned to the material because his Australian-born wife, Inga D'Arcy, missed the sun and light of her homeland. And for those who suffer with seasonal affective disorder or SAD, moping through low light and winter, glass and light are a natural fix.

When you practise this brand of architecture, it's just as key to successfully frame the view of a garden or 100-year-old oak tree as to arrive at the right combination of room proportions, says Simmonds. He followed this theory with another riverfront home that earned him top honours at the recent Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association Housing Design Awards.

The front windows of the Cornwall home look through the branches of a majestic oak tree to the St. Lawrence River.

"When you put in lots of glass, you have to have something to look at."

Another master of glass architecture, Barry Hobin, designed an Island Park Drive home for a young entrepreneur and his family that came a close second in a custom home category.

"My favourite part of the house is all of the glass and being able to see the neighbouring park," the owner said in an interview earlier this year.

Hobin's own Rideau Canal home has large panels of glass.

"Glass is really a magical material," says Friedemann Weinhardt, owner of Design First Interiors and part of the design team that won provincial honours for the renovation of an Ottawa River home that maximizes water views from the master bedroom and entertaining areas on the main floor.

"There are new uses for the material. It is quite clear there are more purposes than windows," says Weinhardt. "You can do walls in glass. Stairs in glass. It removes all barriers and opens up spaces."

Then there are glass artists who trade granite for chunky slabs of glass in the kitchen or cabinet makers who combine glass and light to showcase prized possessions.

Ottawa designer Penny Southam called on a Montreal firm to craft thick slabs of glass to install in a Westboro kitchen. She also installed a series of coloured lights behind glass and ceiling wall panels in the room, making it shimmer.

Architect John Donkin is a big glass man, positioning it so there's still privacy, yet also light. "I can sit in my backyard and see through to the front street. It is wonderful," says Donkin, adding he hasn't seen a window that he hasn't wanted to make bigger.

Yet big windows are becoming an expensive option, thanks to the revised Ontario Building Code, which makes it virtually mandatory to use the more expensive triple-glazed windows when the glass-to-wall ratio exceeds 22 per cent. There is also a strong likelihood triple-glazed windows will be necessary when the wall-to-glass ratio exceeds the lower category of 17 to 22 per cent. Under the old code, which was updated in January, double glazing was good enough.

The new code is pushing for tougher energy levels to reduce energy consumption, which is a challenge in a city where temperatures can flex between 32 C in summer to a frigid -32 C in winter.

Builders may still be able to use double-glazed windows if they use a double low e argon film coating when the glass ratio ranges between 17 and 22 per cent, says Gary Sharp, EnviroHome co-ordinator for the Canadian Home Builders' Association.

There are also options to use more insulation in the walls and roof to meet the tougher energy demands of the code, says Sharp. Some designs will need computer modelling and working with energy consultants to meet the tougher code.

But be ready to pay substantially more for windows that make up more than 22 per cent of a home, he says.

Triple-glazed windows are 30-to 40-percent more expensive than double-glazed windows, says Mike Lynch, a veteran of the industry now working with Window Works.

A 60-by-90-inch double-glazed window with low e and filled with argon gas would typically cost $1,000, he says. A triple-pane window is about $1,400 and the industry's most energy-efficient window - a triple-pane window filled with Krypton - costs about $1,900.

The cost is still less than stone or brick cladding, but likely similar to siding, he says.

There is the added problem of supporting the heavier windows, working with architects and modifying designs, says Lynch.

But glass architecture and Ottawa's climate can work together, says Simmonds, adding that he puts extra insulation in the walls and roof and usually locates windows on southern exposures with large roof overhangs to cut down on the direct rays of the sun.

He is also a fan of heated floors to reduce drafts. "You want the views and you want to be warm. You can have both."

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